LaHood the Republican lobbyist

2/22/13 1:17 PM EST

The White House trotted out Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at a press briefing Friday, ostensibly to detail the impacts of sequester cuts on air travel. But LaHood said there's another reason administration officials chose him to deliver the message.

"I would describe my presence here with one word: Republican," he said. "They're hoping that maybe I could influence some of the people in my own party."

LaHood, the only Republican in Obama's cabinet and a former congressman, said he was hoping to "wake up" his former colleagues and spur them to compromise with Democrats and the White House on a solution to avert to the automatic cuts.

"I think Republicans need to step up here," he said, adding that during his 14 years in the House, he and other Republicans, lead by Newt Gingrich, worked with then-President Bill Clinton to balance the budget five times.

"It meant that there was compromise," LaHood said. "This requires compromise, this requires Republicans stepping forward with some ideas about how to keep essential services of government running at the level that people have been accustomed to. This is not rocket science. This is people coming together the way that other Congresses have done to solve big issues."

LaHood then suggested that GOP House members go see the movie, "Lincoln," which he said "shows how hard it was back then to get things done."

"But what Lincoln did is he gathered people around him the way that I believe President Obama is doing, by calling Republicans, talking to them, trying to work with them, and when that happens, big things get solved. The fiscal cliff got solved because people started talking to one another. So this can happen again."

LaHood said he has already spoken with a half dozen members of Congress about the impacts to air travel, and he warned that some 160 air traffic control towers will either be shuttered or have hours cut back if the sequester cuts hit.

"What I'm trying to do is wake up members of Congress on the Republican side to the idea that they need to come to the table, offer a proposal, so that we don’t have to have this kind of calamity in air service in America," he said.